Increasing programme effectiveness through parent empowerment: the Getting Ready for School project in Tajikistan

Abstract

Within the development studies framework, empowerment involves increasing individual agency vis-à-vis the formal and informal opportunity structure. The Open Society Foundation's Early Childhood Programme developed the Getting Ready for School programme specifically for parents of preschool-age children to use at home in the year before school to build early math and literacy skills in their children. In Tajikistan, parents met on a regular basis with teachers in their local schools to learn activities to use with their children at home. Focus group reports indicated that parents gained knowledge and self-confidence as a result of programme participation, considered foundational aspects of the empowerment process. Responses also demonstrated that parents displayed characteristics of empowerment as they used programme activities and skills not only with their six-year-old child, but with siblings, extended family members and community children. They also shared the skills they learned with family members and neighbours.

Keywords:

• training parents
• empowerment
• rural
• Central Asia
• Getting Ready for School

Notes

1. The Soviet Union gained control of Tajikistan in the late 1920s. The estimated literacy rate at the time was well below 5% and few adults had been to any schooling outside of religious instruction (Kaser 2006; Whitsel 2011).

2. Between 1922 and 1940, the number of secondary schools in Tajikistan increased from just 3 to 315 (Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–72, as cited by Kaser 2006).

3. Children's grades were sometimes posted at parents’ places of employment to create social pressure among parents for academic achievement of their children through hard work and good behaviour (Denzin 1976).